August 24, 2009
Instead of ice cream, it’s produce
In Detroit of all places:*
In a neighborhood served by 26 liquor stores but only one grocery, a community group is peddling fresh fruits and vegetables like ice cream.
Five days a week, the Peaches & Greens truck winds its way through the streets as a loudspeaker plays R&B and puts out the call: “Nutritious, delicious. Brought right to you. We have green and red tomatoes, white and sweet potatoes. We have greens, corn on the cob and cabbage, too.”
The truck set up like a small market brings affordable produce to families on public assistance, homebound seniors and others who can’t reach the well-stocked grocery chains in the suburbs
*Actually, it makes more sense than you think.
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I love this.
Like the vegetable man from whom my Connecticut grandma bought her produce even into the mid-1960s. A man who drive around in a truck.
I would love it if a vegetable man were to cruise my neighborhood.
We have a similar program here in Beacon, New York. It’s run by Common Ground Farms, our local CSA, and Green Teen. I was the auctioneer this spring for the benefit to help raise funds to get this project off the ground. The Detriot project and the one here are two of a handful of these experimental programs that have sprung up around the country in the last couple of years.
Oops.Here’s the story link
I saw a truck vegetable man in Malta. (Oh, no, not Malta again!) On the island of Gozo, in the town of Xaghra. (Pronounced something like SHAH-rah.) That’s where the Ggantija Temples are.
Just last week, in Chicago, India and I saw watermelons being sold from a truck. Actually, we just saw a truck loaded with melons parked in a spot that was probably illegal. We did not see the seller, who may or may not have been licensed to sell his produce.
Vegetable men still drive the streets of El Paso. When I was visiting my mother recently, I answered the door to find a lovely older Mexican man with long, curly hair holding three beautiful tomatoes in one hand and a Presidio cantaloupe in the other. My mother has bought produce from him for years.
When I was a child, we were visited frequently by a peddlar named Jake. I was a sickly child, and for long stretches the only food I could keep down was watermelon. This was in the 1960s, when foods were not available year-round as they are now. Jake would make trips to far South Texas to find melons just for me. He called me–as did my mother–Cindita.
Cindita. I am honestly tearing up and gulping a little over that.
But rather than go all weepy, I think I will tell you what prompted India to exclaim, “A sign for Cindy!” as we made our tour of The Signage of Lawrence Avenue (Chicago) last week.
It was PARKING “IN REAR”. Cindita.
Gracias, “mi” amiga.
De “nada”, compañera.
Just think, Cindy. If you and Daryl relocate to Marfa, you can do your big city shopping in “El” Paso again.
I saw some stores in Alpine last time I was in that neck of Texas. Not like what they have in “El” Paso, true. But you could get you some stuff.
Growing up on the Gulf Coast of Texas we didn’t have door-to-door produce, but we did have men who would drive house to house selling fish. I don’t recall if my parents ever bought any (I’m not really into seafood) but it was a common sight, especially during the summer.